Sunday, August 26, 2012

So, you bring claims for Idea Misappropriation; Unfair Competition; Breach of Oral Contract; Breach of Implied Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing; Negligence; Misappropriation of Trade Secrets; Conversion of Trade Secrets; and Promissory Estoppel. All claims are based on the same set of facts. Any problems?

The Uniform Trade Secrets Act was designed, by the Commissioners, to “be applied and construed to effectuate its general purpose to make uniform the law with respect to the subject of this Act among states enacting it.” The general purpose has been stated as follows:

[T]o create a uniform business environment [with] more certain standards for protection of commercially valuable information, and to preserve a single tort action under state law for misappropriation of trade secret as defined in the statute and thus to eliminate other tort causes of action founded on allegations of misappropriation of information.

Other tort causes of action are the issue. One Federal Court judge has explained that finding something other than a trade secret and then applying other tort claims would destroy the general purpose of uniformity.

If the UTSA’s preemption provision only preempted claims of misappropriation of information that meets the statutory definition of a “trade secret,” the provisions purpose would be undermined. In every instance where a plaintiff could not meet the statutory requirements of the Uniform Act, the court would be forced to re-analyze the claim under the various common law theories. Such a result would undermine the uniformity and clarity that motivated the creation and passage of the Uniform Act.

The UTSA is intended to foster uniformity in the definition of state
laws, and a party may not read this design out of the statutory scheme
under the guise of “plain language” or any other rule of construction.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

The existence of a trade secret and wrongful misappropriation are two important elements of a theft of trade secrets claim. The focus here is on the latter, misappropriation.

It is tempting for attorneys to bring trade secret claims, but doing so without good evidence of the wrongful act of misappropriation can result in an ugly award of attorneys' fees if you lose. It is becoming more common to assert trade secrets, but doing so without a sound understanding of what is a trade secret and what is a violation of trade secret law can backfire, and the amount of that backfire can be tremendous. Bring a theft of trade secrets claim without proper support can result in an ugly award of attorneys' fees against you a sanction.

Misappropriation under UTSA includes acquiring trade secrets through
“improper means” or using trade secrets of another that were obtained
“from or through a person who owed a duty to the person seeking relief
to maintain its secrecy or limit its use....” "Improper means" includes theft, bribery, misrepresentation, breach or
inducement of a breach of a duty to maintain secrecy, or espionage
through electronic or other means. Reverse engineering or independent
derivation alone shall not be considered improper means. A.R.S. 44-401

In a recent California case, the plaintiff sued defendants based on the
suspicion that they must have misappropriated trade secrets
because the individual defendants left the employ of plaintiff to work for a
competitor, who subsequently took one of plaintiff's clients. The result? Let's look at the attorney fees statute in the trade secret context:

44-404. Attorney fees
The court may award reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing party for any of the
following:
1. A claim of misappropriation made in bad faith.
2. A motion to terminate an injunction made or resisted in bad faith.
3. Willful and malicious misappropriation.

What is "bad faith?" The California courts have said: “[I]n enacting section 3426.4
the Legislature was concerned with curbing ‘specious' actions for
misappropriation of trade secrets, and such actions may superficially
appear to have merit. We ... conclude that ‘bad faith’ for purposes of
section 3426.4
requires objective speciousness of the plaintiff's claim, as opposed to
frivolousness, and its subjective bad faith in bringing or maintaining
the claim.” (
Gemini, at p. 1262, 116 Cal.Rptr.2d 358.)

Now, that does not help much. But this does: simply hiring another's employee and taking a client is not enough to support bringing a claim. The California court says " There is no evidence in the record supporting the claim that defendant
misappropriated SASCO's trade secrets. Defendants were not required
to conclusively prove a negative (i.e., that they did not steal SASCO's
trade secrets). Instead, under the “objectively specious” standard, it
was enough for defendants to point to the absence of evidence of
misappropriation in the record. It was perfectly legitimate for
Rosendin to hire the individual defendants and for the individual
defendants to leave the employ of SASCO in favor of a competitor,
Rosendin. (See Reeves v. Hanlon (2004) 33 Cal.4th 1140, 1149, 17 Cal.Rptr.3d 289, 95 P.3d 513.)
Speculation that the individual employees must have taken trade
secrets from SASCO based on their decision to change employers does not
constitute evidence of misappropriation. Nor does speculation that
Rosendin's success in obtaining the Verizon Tustin contract was based on
the theft of trade secrets constitute evidence of misappropriation. (
King v. Pacific Vitamin Corp. (1967) 256 Cal.App.2d 841, 850, 64 Cal.Rptr. 486
[Intent to “take away some of plaintiff's business did not prove their
actions to be wrongful. There is virtue in fair competition in
business even though a competitor is hurt”].)"